A graph is a data structure that defines a plurality of objects, referred to as nodes. A graph may also define relationships between nodes, referred to as edges. Graphs are used in a variety of applications. For example, a graph may comprise data about users in a social network. Each node may include information about a user in the social network, and the edges may indicate which users are friends in the social network.
Displaying a visualization of an entire graph on a display, particularly on a small device, such as a mobile phone, may make the visualization less useful. For example, a user may have a difficult time selecting a node in a graph if all the nodes in the graph are displayed at the same time. However, if a user zooms into the graph visualization to get a closer look at a particular node in the graph, then much of the graph may be pushed off screen and no longer visible.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
While each of the drawing figures illustrates a particular embodiment for purposes of illustrating a clear example, other embodiments may omit, add to, reorder, and/or modify any of the elements shown in the drawing figures. For purposes of illustrating clear examples, one or more figures may be described with reference to one or more other figures, but using the particular arrangement illustrated in the one or more other figures is not required in other embodiments.